


constant communication (maybe we can get by without it)

by brucewaynery



Series: iron man bingo fills [4]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe, Flirting, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Humor, M/M, Miscommunication, Model AU, Shameless Steve Rogers, Shameless Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 14:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: Tony can't think of why he should stop sleeping around so much when there's a literal Adonis in front of him, very clearly interested. He entertains the idea when it turns out that he'll have to work with him for his next project, but ultimately, dismisses it when his lips are doingthat.OR, Tony's a model, Steve's a photographer, they make it work (sort of).(for the model/influencer au square on imb)





	constant communication (maybe we can get by without it)

“Come here often?” 

There’s a handsome stranger in front of him, flirting with him, clearly interested, if the way his eyes are roaming over Tony’s body is any indication, and even though one of his New Year’s resolutions is to stop sleeping around as much, he still has an hour until he has to really has to stick by them. For all of two weeks at least. Apparently, he has to ‘tone down the sluttiness’, although, staring at the literal Adonis in front of him, he can’t, for the life of him, remember why the sluttiness was ever a problem.

“I’d be here more often if I knew that you were here, gorgeous” Tony replies, tilting his head up and leaning against the bar. The air between them is already charged and heated, having nothing to do with how packed the room is. They’re at the yearly Osborn party, networking under the guise of celebrating in the New Year. He’s pretty sure that his agent told him to make good connections, but that’s the last thing on his mind. Especially with that shirt the guy is wearing, blue and tight enough that Tony’s not too sure that he knows what his size is, but Tony’s not complaining when he can see everything through the damn shirt.

The guy grins and ducks his head, leaning further into Tony’s space, “Makes me special, huh?”

“Nah,” Tony says, casually, breaking eye contact to swirl his drink, “just hot enough to kiss in the New Year.” He doesn’t have a date this year, which is a crying shame, but it’s looking like that might change.

“I can think of better things than just kissing at midnight.” 

_That_ definitely changes.

It’s in the back of his mind that he should probably get a name or something, but he can barely get out a ‘So what can I call you?’ between shoving him against the wall and then getting shoved against the wall. He doesn't think he can see past how turned on he is when the guy drops to his knees and looks up at him with hooded, lust-filled, bright, bright blue eyes.

Neither counts down when the ball drops, or pay any attention to anything happening that isn’t each other. To be fair, Tony’s not too sure that he can remember his own name by midnight, God, he hasn’t gotten fucked this good in a while.

Tony never gets his name, or finds out what he was doing at the gala (he was probably a model), but he does know that he can lift Tony up and hold him against a wall without breaking a sweat and give him a fucking that makes it into his top ten - “_Fuck,_” - top five, because he somehow manages to find everything that makes him tick before they even get all their clothes off. His lack of gag reflex and his incredible amount of stamina also puts him in his good books. 

He’s gone when Tony wakes up, which is a shame, because he was kinda hoping for morning sex, but he’s left a note with his number scrawled on the back of some business card. Cute. 

Tony throws it away. It lands next to one of the condoms near the trash can. Close enough.

-

“No-one, you didn’t find a single person you liked?”

Tony knew he should have just called a sick day. Who even works on the second of January, most people are still hung-over, Tony himself isn’t (something tells him that the guy wouldn’t have fucked him if he was drunk, which boosts him further up the list), but he can tell that some of the interns are. He has half a mind to tell them to go home. If enough people go home then everyone will have to, surely?

“Not in the polite sense, no.”

“Tony, you were there _all night_,” Pepper says, exasperated.

“Well,” he starts, sheepishly, averting his eyes when Pepper gives him a look, “technically I was only there for about an hour.”

“For fuck's sake Tony--” “Got it in one--” “no, I don’t want to hear it, I’m going to get an intern to pick and you’re gonna have to work with whoever it is for your next shoot,” Pepper says, definitively. She looks around for the first kid she can find and lays her eyes on Peter, an aspiring photographer, just out of college.

“You,” she says, pointing at him, “kid, find a list of all of the photographers at the Osborn party, put them in a randomizer and tell me who comes out, I’m going out to get coffee and you better have a name and a number for me by then, Tony, you’re coming with me.”

“Nice sticker Parker,” Tony says, nodding to the Millenium Falcon sticker covering the back of his laptop, as he gets dragged out the way they just came by Pepper.

Coffee is less cappuccino and more passive-aggressive yelling and business talk. In all honesty, Tony prefers an americano.

By the time they get back, Peter has a doc set up with a photographer’s online portfolio, resumé, and personal statement. The kid works fast, Tony makes a mental note to keep him on at the end his intern year.

**Steve G. Rogers, BFA (Hons)**

“Ring any bells?” Pepper presses, looking over some other details of this Steve guy. She calls someone while Tony looks at the guy’s portfolio.

“Nah,” he replies leaning over Peter to scroll down and scan over the doc. He’s good. Worked for SHEILD before it went under, the Howlies before that and a couple pieces for the Avengers, the Guardians and the Eternals, all good reports from them, all through Carter’s, which, according to the doc, he got a job with within two months of leaving college.

He’s surprised, he’s pretty sure that he should’ve at least heard about him by now, what with his ‘Nick Fury stamp of approval’ (an actual award, as given by a pirate - sometimes Tony can’t believe the sheer ridiculousness of the industry he works in).

“He seems good,” Tony admits. Pepper just rolls her eyes and tells him to meet with his stylists and media managers in ten minutes. “Do I even have control over my life anymore,” he mutters as he gets into the elevator, Pepper telling him that he’ll be in Brooklyn by 5.

He doesn’t know if he’s just being particularly slow today or everyone else is fast, or he’s somehow hungover from the sex ( sex-hangover unquestionably is a thing and he’ll deny it to his dying day but that delicious burn lasted _all day_. He kinda regretted throwing away the note.), but all of today he’s being shoved around, barely knowing where he is really.

He should’ve taken a sick day.

After meetings upon meetings with some relatively boring people, and a fun chat with Peter, he’s pushed into a car, met with Not-Happy (_he’s_ taken a sick day (he hasn’t he’s on his honeymoon)) and driven through New York rush hour. He wishes that he’d finished at 5, like any normal person, but he hates coming in any earlier than eleven in the morning, and the consequence of that is later nights. Well, no-one ever called him a morning bird.

By the time they get to a studio in Brooklyn, the sun’s pretty much set, the stars, what little of them shine through the pollution, are peaking out of the darkness on one side and on the other, the position of the sun paints the clouds a candy floss pink. Tony's the furthest from an artist (some would say he’s the art (he’s not one to disagree)) but even he can appreciate it.

“Miss. Potts says to go through and show ‘em this,” Not-Happy tells Tony when he gets out of the car, handing him a card. It’s definitely him, after all these years (far more than Tony will admit) he should be used to the break-neck speed of his team, and the damn industry.

They’re in one of those ‘gentrified’ places in Brooklyn, meaning a decade ago, you would almost certainly get mugged here, but now, it’s where hipsters live. Tony’s learned, over the course of his career, that a good 90% of photographers are hipsters. He may or may not have also slept with bordering on 50% of them. Hipsters are hot. That’s probably why he goes through so many photographers so quickly (in more ways than one). 

It dawns on Tony that Pepper’s probably right and, yeah, he should stop sleeping around so much, at least, in the industry, it’s going to lead to a very awkward situation at some point. 

As Tony walks into the studio an honest-to-god bell rings when he swings the door open. He shows the card to a grumpy guy sitting at the receptionist desk and he waves to a door across from him, “Your agent’s there as well,” he tells him.

“Cheers,” Tony nods, making his way across the foyer, it’s pretty small, he takes in the exposed brick and the pieces hung up on it, he thinks he’s going to like this photographer based on the more-than-average amount of tasteful nudes. He’s not surprised that Peter didn’t include them in the doc, most interns are adorably naive, despite being Gen Z, and puritan about nudes, but they soon grow out of it. Hipster photographers also do the most amount of nudes. Peppers says that’s why he sleeps with so many, Tony wouldn’t disagree.

The actual studio is much bigger and lighter than the foyer, his MUA is there, with Pepper, amongst box lights and a couple of racks of clothes and boxes of props. Pirate themed. Huh. He really should read the briefs. He wonders if Fury had anything to do with it.

The photographer isn’t here yet, so, after greeting Pepper, Tony pokes around, he has no idea how they’re gonna try to make piracy the height of fashion again, but the guy seems to be good and he once made mechanics sexy (there was a spike in young people’s interest in STEM after his mechanics photoshoot, and he’s well aware that correlation doesn't always mean causation, but he likes to pretend). He gets bored with billowy shirts and striped pants quickly and resorts to messing around on his phone when he realises that the boxes are locked, sending memes to Rhodey until his MUA pushes him into a chair and does his magic on him.

By the time he’s done, a muscular blond guy is facing away from him, fiddling with a camera. _Finally._ God, he wants to go home already. And it’s only 6. He should’ve taken a fucking sick day.

“We’re ready,” the photographer, Steve G. Rogers, calls, turning to face Tony.

_Fuck._

It’s the guy. The one with no gag reflex and stamina for days. The one with bright, bright blue eyes. 

Maybe he won-- yeah he definitely remembers. 

_Fuck._

He really, really should’ve taken a sick day. He was networking, that night, Tony realises, heart sinking - he’d seemed genuinely into Tony, and not just for business reasons, but maybe not.

“Can I--” Tony starts, clearing his throat, “can I talk to you, outside?”

“Yeah, yeah sure,” Rogers (Tony doesn’t know what to call him, ‘Steve’ seems too casual, ‘The Guy’ just seems crude, ‘Rogers’, despite how painfully professional, is the safest. For now.), he’s fumbling a little, so, so much less smooth than he was, barely a couple nights ago.

“So,” Tony starts, stuffing his hands in his pockets when they’re in the deserted foyer. The grumpy guy is gone.

“Yeah.”

Tony opens his mouth to say something (he can’t look this gu-- _Rogers_ in the eye without picturing him on his knees, or above him, or covered in Tony’s-- he’s about to have another type of problem very soon if he keeps thinking about it.), but Rogers beats him to it.

“Listen, I wasn’t, y’know, I didn’t hook-up just for this,” he waves his hands around, as if to emphasise a point, “I’ll sign off this, if you want.”

Great. He’s hot and an actual sweetheart. Don’t get him wrong, he was an absolute sweetheart when it came to the sex as well, but sex-kindness is very different real-life-kindness. And if he didn’t hook up for a job then...

“We’re adults,” Tony says, with nonchalant confidence pulled straight out of his ass, “we can work together without it being weird, right? Right?”

“You’re yet to look me in the eye,” Rogers says, and for the life of him, Tony cannot figure him out, one minute he’s fumbling <strike>and adorable</strike> and the next, calm and brimming with confidence. Professional. Tony should look into that.

Eh. Fuck that.

“Because if I do, I’ll imagine you on your knees,” he says, looking straight at him and holding his gaze. He swallows (_nope_), affected and Tony can hear his breath hitch. Point Stark.

“You’re going to make this very difficult aren’t you,” he says, almost mildly. Tony can see his professionalism slipping away, replaced by the same look that graced his features on New Year's Eve, the same look that got Tony into bed (amongst other things) in an embarrassingly (if Tony was a man with shame) short amount of time.

“I--”

“Boys!” Pepper calls, sticking her head out the door, “This shoot’ll last at least an hour, and you two are wasting time here.”

“Yes ma’am,” Rogers says, nodding and moving to go in the room. He holds the door open for Tony.

And they say chivalry is dead, turns out, it’s just in the form of an Adonis-type almost-hipster. Go figure. 

The shoot is hell. 

Forget what he said earlier, chivalry is a damn six-foot-whatever tease.   
For the whole hour, Tony has him touching him constantly, arranging his limbs, fucking lingering, getting all up in his face, and dodging deftly out the way, grinning, when Tony tries to give as good as he’s getting. He’s also giving him a steady stream of compliments while he’s actually taking the photos, and for all his flirting and teasing (all somehow flying under the radar of the other people in the studio) he is professional when he’s doing his job, that Tony can grant him, despite him making it very difficult for Tony to do his. 

He affects Tony so much that Pepper pulls him to the side, twenty minutes in, “What’s up with you today?”

Tony refuses to give her any more incentive to tighten his leash, or tell her that she was right, “Nothing,” he insists, giving her his best ‘I promise I’m fine’ look. She absolutely does not believe it, but she lets him go with a look that says ‘We’ll talk about this later, don’t think you’ve gotten off easy’.

The compliments and encouragement, small directions, he knows come from a photographer’s mindset, to direct a model, everyone he’s worked with does it, constant communication is a must, but because it’s from _him_, and because the last time he was being instructed to do something by him it was to come. And that bastard knows it.

He’s the flirtiest professional he’s ever met and he’s driving Tony up the wall. 

Part of him wishes the shoot went on longer. It’s been a while, if ever, since he’s had this much fun on a shoot. As much as he’s making it hell, he’s also making him smile and laugh and Tony wouldn’t be opposed to working with him for the rest of his career. 

He takes it back.

Rogers has no reason to be bending over like that, forget the fact that all the props are in boxes on the floor, or stretching, exposing tantalizing slivers of his skin, regardless of how high the lights are set and he has no business whatsoever looking that fucking good photographing, crouching down, _on his knees_ and _looking like that_. He’s not too sure that he could’ve handled an extra hour of Rogers’... Rogers-ness. Asshole. Point Steven G. Rogers.

He tells him, breathlessly when the moon is high above them and they’re in his apartment, above the studio.

“In my defence, you look hot as a pirate,” Rogers says, shrugging, his words are slightly muffled due to his mouth being slight occupied with sucking a hickey on the base of Tony’s throat, exactly where he did last time, coaxing little sounds out of Tony.

“What you-- _ah_ \--defile and bed every hot person you see, Rogers?” Tony’s the last to judge, but he likes to keep up the repertoire between them, an odd mix of frenemy and stranger.

“Call me Steve, you’re gonna be screaming it anyway,” Rogers-- _Steve_ suggests instead, nipping him with his teeth.

He’s right.

“I don’t get you,” Tony admits, breaking their calm silence when they’re both lying on their backs, sweat cooling.

Steve, eloquently, says, “Huh?”

“You, you’re,” Tony struggles to find the words to describe him, properly, hot and talented just come with the territory and yeah, he is, but that’s not the point he’s trying to make here, “you’re so damn confusing,” he settles on, frustrated.

Steve rolls up on his side to face him, and it takes all of Tony’s self-control not to kiss him again, because he looks, and there’s no other word for it, debauched, _wrecked_, his hair is messy, smeared with Tony’s come, his lips are still that gorgeous cherry-bitten-red and he has darkening hickeys trailed up his neck.

“Says you,” he murmurs, voice hoarse, “you hire me without so much a call?” He doesn't sound all too accusatory, but he’s staring at Tony with a certain look that he can’t quite place.

“Technically I didn’t hire you,” Tony deflects, lifting himself up on one elbow so he’s looking down at, “my intern randomised it.”

“Huh,” he says, for the second time that night, but this time, it’s more contemplative, less confused.

“Huh? I didn’t even know your name last time!”

“In my defense, you kept calling me petnames and I was fairly occupied. It didn’t seem important,” he says, shrugging, trailing a hand up Tony’s flank. He leans up to press a series of kisses to Tony’s lips and it’s _less_ in so many ways, less fire, less intense, but somehow still passionate, almost gentle. He’s not sure how he’s ever going to win any arguments against this guy when he has such an upper hand. Tony finds that he doesn't mind it much.

They don’t do much talking (discounting anything, aside from their names, that wouldn’t do well in polite company) after that. 

Though maybe that was implied.

For all the importance that constant communication has in their industry, for Steve and Tony here, it goes overlooked. 

Though maybe that was also implied.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! i might continue this so lmk what you think!
> 
> tumblr: ineffablestarkrogers


End file.
